Some mornings I get up and wonder how I ended up here and
why I continue to blog. There is little reward or remuneration in blogging. Few
can make a living from it. Yet day after day, I’m drawn to it.

What inspires me and allows me to keep things fresh, interesting
and remain consistent has little to do with me but YOU!

Those little morsels
of comments that you leave keep me going. It’s when I wake up in the morning to
an email from a reader who learned something in the last post and wants to
thank me for helping them. It’s when a reader takes the time to comment even if
it’s just a ‘thanks I enjoyed this post.’ It’s all those who tweet and retweet,
leave a comment on my Facebook page, and even a click of your mouse on the LIKE
button is an endorsement that tells me to keep doing what I’m doing.

I appreciate the time each one of you takes to offer a few
words at the end of a blog post. It encourages me to comment more myself. Don't leave a remark just because it’s good for
SEO. Please comment
because what the blogger wrote moved you. Comment because you found something
valuable in their post, even if it’s just one small thing. Comment if you
actually took one idea away and implemented into your life. Comment if the post
brought you to tears or made you chuckle. If that blog post stirred any kind of
reaction in you, please tell the writer. Comments are the commodities by way of which most
bloggers are compensated.

More than ever, I am conscientious of that now! I’m very
aware when a new genealogy blogger joins the ranks. Do you remember how it felt to get that first
comment, to know that someone actually read your words, looked at your blog? It’s
such a small gesture on our part yet a big deal to the writer. Years from now
when they look at this era in the birth of social media, let’s make sure we can
reflect back on the good that came out of it. My hope is that through technology
we found a way to be a more supportive community than we could have ever
imagined.

I am proud to be a part of this village and I want to thank
Family Tree Magazine for the recognition they bestowed on me this week. They
are right, being on this list is a little icing on the cake and it makes the
work a little sweeter. I want to congratulate all the bloggers on the list but
also all those who are not on the list. There are hundreds of brilliant family
historians writing beautiful moving blog posts every week. Reward their efforts
and leave a comment.

Most importantly, as I celebrate four and forty, I want to thank you for taking the time to
stop by every week, for supporting me via a comment, email, tweet or like and
for being such an incredible tribe. I look forward to the next couple of years
and the wonderful things we are going to accomplish together.

18 comments:

Lynn - I began my family history project this January after a Christmas/family reunion made me realize that no one in our current family knew anything about our family history. I am knee deep in what I am sure will be a multi-year endeavor. I am using every on-line resource available as well as a genealogical software program to house the details. I have been writing for years using Word but realized that this project was going to need more. For the first time I was actually beginning to feel overwhelmed by the volume of information I was collecting and in need of something better. My quest for a better program lead me to Scrivener, and further research on using it for genealogical writing lead me to you, your blog, and your video tutorials. As a result, I am going to download Scrivener over the weekend and spend a few days finding my way around. I have been using Evernote for years and think it is one of the best ways out there to collect and organize research, particularly if you work over multiple platforms and/or, but finding a program that allows me to have everything on one page (and eliminate my numerous stacks of different size, different color coded index cards, binders and file folders) is going to be heaven. The discovery of Bibme.com is now allowing me to put my well-worn buddy, Kate Turabian, back in a box in the closet! What an exciting time to be a writer, and what better project to spend some of my retirement on than writing a family history narrative. Happy anniversary! Keep up the good work and thank you for the resources, information, encouragement and passion you bring to the world of geneology.

Happy Anniversary and Congratulations on your well-deserved honor. And thanks for pointing the way. My blog to book isn't going to be a blog to book - its just going to be a self-printed booklet, but that is immaterial, I've found a path and a point of view and its taking shape.

Thank you Denise for sharing your story, I always love to hear how readers found their way to this blog but also to this crazy passion of ours. You are definitely in great shape, Evernote and Scrivener are two of the best tools for researching and writing. If you need any help with Scrivener don't hesitate to drop me a line. You're going to love it.

Congratulations to you Lynn! Your blog constantly inspires me. I came across your blog when I first began blogging just a little under two years ago. I have learned a lot from you. Here's to many more years of blogging!

If any blog has earned the right to be in the top 40, it certainly is the Armchair Genealogist. I don't always leave comments but have been known to refer to some article or post when I need answers. I have learned more from you than any other family history blogger and I appreciate the times you have responded to my questions. Thanks you and congratulations although anyone who follows this blog knows it's the best.

Thank you Andrea. Congrats to you as well. I was so very thrilled to see your blog on the Top 40 List along with Mariann Regan. You both shared your stories with us in The Moment I Knew and now here you are in nothing less than the Story Time category. Way to go Andrea!

Thank you Ann, you are very generous. You have also been very generous with your comments over the years and I do appreciate it. I have been able to watch your journey through researching and writing because of the comments you have shared here on a regular basis and that is great reward. Looking forward to seeing so much more from you.

Lynn, in this post you give us all valuable insights. You're right -- there is a voluntary and somewhat fragile connection between bloggers and their commenters. Both do this voluntarily!

The whole blogger-commenter community runs on people's intellectual curiosity: their passion for expressing and gathering ideas and information. It's not about money. As a person who is honored to be in your company in the "top 40," I also feel that "comments are the commodities" by which bloggers like us are compensated. Very well said.

You express perfectly a hope we all have: "that through technology we [have] found a way to be a more supportive community than we could have ever imagined." Already I've found the virtual genealogy community an incredibly supportive place.

Happy 4th blogiversary, Lynn, and a huge congratulations on being named one of Family Tree Magazine's Top 40 blogs! It's certainly a well-deserved honor! Thanks for all the helpful pointers and encouragement you've given us family history bloggers and writers. You're right, there's not a lot of reward in blogging, other than the comments readers leave, so it's great that you've gotten this recognition for all you do. I look forward to reading more in the years to come!

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